Candidates would gut vital social programs

The video that emerged of Mitt Romney accusing 47 percent of Americans is shocking because it shows how out of touch he is. However it should also be noted that his claim is clearly untrue, merely a meme propagated by rich, the super rich and their super PACs to persuade gullible Americans to vote against their best interests.

According to The Tax Policy Center, only 18.1 percent of U.S. households paid no federal taxes in 2011 or a negative federal income tax or no federal payroll taxes. Of this 18 percent, more than half were seniors whose income came from Social Security, which only becomes taxable at a threshold they did not attain.

And most of the rest of the other half were people other than seniors making less than $20,000 a year. These used the earned income tax credit and the child credit to zero out any taxes they might otherwise have had to pay.

In other words, poor people. People just getting by. People who would be eating cat food or going completely hungry part of each month were it not for the food stamp program and other forms of assistance Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Scott Brown want to gut.